कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते संगोSस्त्वकर्मणि ||
You have every right to play, but no claim to the loot
Inaction is no answer to inaccessible fruit
Now that it's done, the task seems like any other thing one would do. But for the last year and a half or so, I have lived in constant fear of failure. At every step of the way, no matter how detached I tried to be, no matter how much
Bhagvadgita I read, all I ever felt was, "if I don't do this I'm dead." This is not an exaggeration, and I thought of it in very literal terms. I have noticed a tendency within me to think more deeply about things than most other people. It was for this reason that I chose philosophy as an optional. While the result made me feel glad about this tendency, it's not a very pleasant experience for me most of the time. During the preparation, it hounded me all the time: while attending classes, taking tests, studying at home, eating, even during the few moments when I fooled myself into believing that I was "relaxing." The only time I was free of the burden of thought was during sleep. During all of my brief professional life before this, I never slept easy, and always woke up tired. But during the preparation period, I always slept like a log, and even the afternoon nap became a regular feature of my daily schedule.
I don't really know what I'm trying to express here, except the fact that intense and gut-wrenching though it may have been, the entire experience made me feel alive. Being alive, in a very strict and admittedly cynical sense, is best felt through the fear of death. Fragility breeds excitement. We all live in a delicate balance, and theoretically every moment is trying to kill us. But it's easy, in today's urban setting, to fall into a rut without even realizing it. Everyday can feel the same, and the sad thing is that most of us look forward to such a feeling of being "settled". But movement and risk is what makes life worth living. Of course, not everyday can be risky and exciting for any sustainable length of time. But every few years, it's necessary to take the proverbial plunge and feel the freedom of the fall.
During all this time, one thing that kept me going was poetry. I wrote some myself, but also tried to find new and lesser known poets across all three languages that I understand. Subjective opinions of how good I really am at writing poems may vary from one end of the spectrum to the other, but for me writing was the only meaningful form of relaxation. When I began finding it tough to pen down new thoughts close to the exam, I started translating classical Hindi and Urdu poems that inspired me, into English. It turned out to be one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, and in the process I learnt that although languages shape cultures (and vice-versa), eventually every language expresses what it means to be human. In that sense, what's lost in translation is insignificant compared to what's retained.
I guess what I'm about to say next is something that countless people faced with what they thought is a do-or-die situation have said. But no matter how many times it has been said before, the
Gita is a truly remarkable piece of literature and actionable philosophy. As part of my syllabus, I got the opportunity to study in some detail various schools of Indian philosophy. Having done that, I became an even more ardent admirer of
Gita for the way it manages to summarise the teachings of every school without fully committing itself to any one of them. This is important, for the
Gita is a piece of practical advice above all. It is not meant for
Shastrartha, or theoretical discussion about the true nature of reality. It consciously eschews prescribing any particular theory on how life should be lived. While undertaking any practical endeavour, it helps to think of Arjun's plight as he encounters the most difficult task conceivable to any human: killing his own kith and kin. Taken out of context, it sounds like a clever charioteer hypnotised a gullible archer into annihilating his own race. But in the overall context of the story, it's clear that Arjun had no alternative course of action left. Whenever I thought of the situation he faced, I was reminded that there are bigger things in life than clearing an exam, and I must try to detach myself from the result even as I work towards it. As I said, I seldom succeeded in doing so, but even the few moments of detachment that I could manage were only when I was writing or reading some or the other form of poetry, including, very literally, The Lord's Song.
It's funny, but after Duryodhana is killed, Krishna turns to the Pandavas and says, "We've been lucky to win." This is God speaking. And so I realized that no matter how sincere or motivated the effort, the result was eventually a matter of luck. Somebody has to check the copies, somebody else has to judge my personality, and I can do nothing more than read the books and write the answers and try to appear confident during the interview. This spirit of detachment is reflected in every action of Krishna throughout the epic. Even though he's God and already knows the outcome of the war in a sense, he plans meticulously, tries his best to avert an inevitable war, and is nothing more than a highly 'aware' human being in the story.
Finally, to me the whole rebirth theory as propounded in the Gita is nothing but a way of saying, "Hey! You're not that special. You like to think you came into existence at a special moment to serve a special purpose, but you've always been around, and so has everyone else. In this incarnation, if you can call it that, you are required or motivated to do certain specific things, which are not necessarily better than the ones you did in previous lives or will do in the future ones. Just focus on the task at hand, and not on how big a dent you can make in the universe. You will never realize the true worth of any task till you have finished doing it, and by then it won't matter because there will be a new task to be done."
न त्वेवाहं जातु नासं न तवं नेमे जनाधिपाः ।
न चैव न भविष्यामः सर्वे वयमतः परम ।।
We have always been around, you, me and these leaders of men
No matter what the future holds, we will always remain
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय, नवानि ग्रहणति नरोSपराणि |
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा, न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देहि ||
As men cast of old rags, and new clothes are worn
The soul leaves old bodies, finds new ones to return
